Carpathia
Carpathia was a dark and hellish land ruled by Vigo the Cruel. History & Politics Carpathia began as a province of the Tiberian Empire during the Eastern Colonizations. It was pivitol during the Elven Subjugations 80 years later. During the First Planar War, it was overrun by the forces of hell and suffered the worst fate of any of the Tiberian lands. During the war, a figure named Vigo appeared and took control of Carpathia. In 50 TA, the Elves of O'Emran seceded from what was left of the Tiberian Empire and fought a war for their independence. Nominally still an Imperial provice, Vigo provided troops for the conflict and siezed Emranese lands and brought them under his rule. During this war, Vigo purged his territory of forces opposed to his rule in the Carpathian Genocides. Following his success and the final decline of the Empire, Carpathia fell into darkness and isolation. Four hundred years later, armies from Carpathia invaded the Kingdom of Thracia. This Destruction of Thrace resulted in the nearly complete depopulation of the Thracian plains. Between The Planar Wars Vigo's armies were conspicuously absent during the Second Planar War. Afterwards, Vigo responded to the formation of the Great Alliance by sending agents abroad to sow discord and wreck havoc in all the other nations, forcing the Alliance's attention away from his dark lands. The most successful of these operations was the force ressurcection of St. Jean, ripping her from her heavenly respite during the Dark Ritual. While St. Jean was rescued by a team of heroes, the agents that orchestrated it brought the nobility of Iberia under the influence of Vigo, causing the country to fall from grace and descend into chaos. This led to a period of time called the Carpathian Disorders, in which Vigo's agents continued to spread chaos across the Mundy. The disorders ended at the beginning of the Third Planar War. During the war, Vigo's armies invaded Carpathia's neighbors once again and found themselves outmatched. Elven and Thuringian armies won every key battle, throwing back the invasion forces with ease. No invasion of Carpathia was ever mounted, but it had ceased to be a threat. The forces of the Mundy largely ignored the dark land until after the war when the Great Starving struck the planet. As civilization crumbled, the population of Carpathia dwindled until gone. The few survivors of Vigo's wrath and the hellish plagues of the war emigrated, never to return. The country was effectively, dead. The Lightbringer During the Great Starving, a man walked out of the ruins of Carpathia and begun teaching the wretched survivors of the Third Planar War how to live better. His teachings centered on morality and conduct, sanitation and cleanliness, and on spirit and divinity. He exhorted the powerful to protect the weak, and the weak to help the powerful. His teachings centered daily life on the community rather than individual survival. During his lifetime, the civilizations of the Mundy failed and succumbed to invasions by the Zoran Caliphate and the Orcish Hordes. His life ended when the Orcish War Leader killed him in the ruins of the Thuringigarde Palace, which then led to the Divine Dawn Crusades. Government & Society Carpthia was ruled by Vigo. Geography Carpathia's borders stretch from the northern borders of O'Emran to the southern borders of Enthaela and west to the eastern borders of Thrace. The central portion of the country is a u-shaped mountain range, which surrounds the major cities and settlements. Religion Carpathians tend to worship Vigo, if they worship at all. Economy & Technology A dark and seemingly dead land, Carpathia boasts little economy beyond subsistence farming. Any other industrial labor is slave labor. Warfare Imperial Period During the fall of the Tiberian Empire, an undetermined number of legions were stationed in and around Carpathia. Retaining the organization and recruiting from Carpathia itself through forced conscription, these legions formed the core organization for Vigo's forces in the following centuries. Initially, they were well equipped and trained, but they generally lagged behind advancement until the Destruction of Thrace, where Thracian horsemen and Thuringian tercios successfully fought the Carpathian Death Legion. Post Imperial After the losses incurred in Thrace, Carpathia withdrew politically and militarily into itself. Its armies were not seen again as large formations of forces.